GLADE Team Project: Dark Magic

[titi]

This means that Dark Magic would get some kind of additional license only for your faction diagram.

So, what's my next job on Dark Magic?
Which unit should I make?

[modman]

This means that Dark Magic would get some kind of additional license only for your faction diagram.

Thanks for the advice, titi.  But I'm not sure what you mean by getting an additional license.  What are the consequences of the license?  Let's suppose that viewing the faction diagram ingame was possible in Glest one day.  Would that make it illegal to show my diagram?

So, what's my next job on Dark Magic?
Which unit should I make?

I think that the Acolyte would be great.  Is it OK that this unit will need a lot of different animations?  It needs a standing, walking, building, harvesting, mining,, repairing, standing with wood, standing with gold/stone, walking with wood, walking with gold/stone and dying.  I know it's a lot, but somebody has to do it.  And who better than you right now?  Just tell me if you don't want to, OK?  Thanks.

//Edit: You can combine some of those together, but Magic didn't, so I was just giving the option.

[Hectate]

I'm pretty sure modman's fine on this one - as he seemed to note. The diagram is only useful to the mod creators at this point. Obviously if it were included (while using that font) as part of a manual or "Dark Magic Player's Guide" then that might be a different issue.

*and after reading that readme on the last page, I see no reason why there would be any problem in either case.

[titi]

Ok I will do the acolyte
are there any other ideas than this picture ? It looks really boring without the swords and I think it really looks like the  initiates with a dark texture :/ .

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[img]http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/8020/acolyte2.jpg[/img]

[titi]

what about something like these? I like the first one ( a dark version of course )
He can scratch on the stones for mining !

... or something gollum like

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[img]http://www.freewebs.com/deathevolution/WITD%20Crawler%20Konzept.jpg[/img]or something gollum like:

[Mark]

I don't know, you presented a good round of images.  But it would definitely be best if you copied the last one.  Maybe you could add some shrunken skulls...

I would check with modman first.  He's the concept manager.  I would recommend doing the morlock first. 

[silnarm]

That last one would look pretty awesome I think!

[modman]

Titi, you're right on the mark.   I like the last one best, but I'm trying to find my own...

I'll edit my post when I find something.  The only thing I have against the last one is that Dark Magic is not undeads; the two forehead horns are cool though and could probably be added to another design.  Or, we could just make the skull a human(oid) head.

I found five:

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[img]http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs14/f/2007/051/2/9/Wizard_by_ulrickwery.jpg[/img]

These last two are in for good measure.



I like the staff of the first, the head of the second (but the horns from your last one should be added), and the overall body type of the third image.  On the last picture of yours, the shoulders have some kinds of pointy thingies (I don't know what to call it ) and there is a sort of vest in the front.  I like the shoulder things and the vest in the front as well.  I like how my third image kind of has spines down the back, like a monster, but it doesn't look too foreign as to be inappropriate to Dark Magic.  Because you see, this faction is all about humans which have learned a sinister trade: Dark Magic.  And if you guys are wondering why I haven't told you yet, it's because I just figured that out.

//Edit: I forgot, but it is also important that the Acolyte not have any obvious weapon on it, because it doesn't actually attack.  This is simply because I saw all of the bad things the Magic AI does with the Initiate, so I am trying to make it more like the Worker from Tech, which the AI handles better.

[titi]

I think I will try the last one of my pictures. ( everybody likes it so ...)
But I will not let him walk, I think I will let him hover like some kind of ghost ok? This will look a little bit different.
The pictures you found look a bit to powerful in my opinion whats not so good for a very weak worker unit.

Anyone has some ideas how to make him look "harvesting" or "mining". Thats something I don't like in the magic faction. You can't see by the model which order the unit has.
ideas:  
- adding a saw  or axe  ( as usual )
- adding some kind of trailer for the goods
- adding a scythe for harvesting wood
... your ideas

And yes, I also think without attack is better for the acolyte . The AI really has some problems with it.

[John.d.h]

Maybe for harvesting, the Acolyte could use some kind of magical energy blade/wave?

The curved things on the right side of the picture are what I'm getting at, here.

[Mark]

If at all possible, could you wait please?  I will upload an image of what I think it should look like tonight.

Edit:  Here it is.

This has combined our favorite elements of each image.  This is what I think of it as, but if you want to add some spikes on the pauldrons, or some skulls hanging from his belt, be my guest.

[John.d.h]

I think the skull and horns would work better as a mask than part of his head.

[titi]

It's too late I already finished the base model but ....
it looks very similar to yours but as john said with skull so on

I will show you something as soon as a screenshot is useful ( it has no texture yet so a screenshot doesn't give you anything now )

[Loronal]

l
It's from Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien is unclear on whether or not the monster has wings, but I'm pretty sure we don't want it to be able to fly.
[/quote]
In the LOTR movies the balrog has giant wings. In the battle for middle earth game the balrog has the abilty to fly short distances If you make an ability for the balrog that has a small fly animation you could make it use energy but go faster than the walk.  

[John.d.h]

In the LOTR movies the balrog has giant wings. In the battle for middle earth game the balrog has the abilty to fly short distances If you make an ability for the balrog that has a small fly animation you could make it use energy but go faster than the walk.  

Hmm... we couldn't make him actually fly like an air unit, but I believe we could give him an alternative move skill that requires EP, and we could animate it to look like he's flying a few feet above the ground, like the Dark Elder's charge animation.  I'm not sure how the AI would handle having two different move skills, though.

[-Archmage-]

I tried that once: I gave warp speed to the Airship, and the AI didn't use it. It seems to me the AI uses the first move command it finds.

[John.d.h]

GAE might use it properly, since it knows how to use multiple attacks.

[-Archmage-]

Well I think Modman should decide what to do at this point.

[modman]

Personally, it sounds like more trouble than it's worth.  But it would be possible to make the AI use it.  The flying could be a charge animation, which would be executed every time the unit is moving as attack.  Alternately, the flying could be placed before the normal move skill and the AI would use it every time they have enough EP.  But again, I still say it's more trouble than it's worth.

BTW, Gameboy, how is the Gargoyle coming?  Is it almost finished?

[gameboy]

i've just finished drawing a sheet for it and will get down to it in a few days :

BTW it looks like media fire is up again.

[modman]

That's good.  Because without you, we were down to a skeleton crew  (me and Titi and Mark).  And the Gargoyle (really, a Malaphas with a different name) should be one of the most exciting units to have in Dark Magic (if not in all of Magitech).  This is because it is very strong, and will look awesome .

[Omega]

Mm, I'm late. Definately the last one!

Mediafire may be up, but glest.110mb.com is down... Bah. I wonder if I should pay for some decent uptime...

[Mark]

I can pretty much tell who voted to not have to download another faction automatically.  [cough, cough, Omega, cough]. 

I voted the first one, but I see reason in all those opinions.  1.) I like how it is balanced and made to fit in with magitech, 2.), Some parts might need to be redone, 3.), Magitech is so good how it is.  Does it need to be changed? and 4.), the Glest download is like 100 MB (Its been a while since I downloaded it), and that is pretty large, especially if you have to download it often. 

How about a new techtree that could include Magic, Tech and Dark Magic, and any well done magitech-balanced and magitech-comparable factions that are made.  This appeals to all of the above reasonings except #4, which could be solved with 7zipping or some other kind of compression. 

[kazakore]

I think it would be good to have more factions as standard, maybe wait and see if FPM gets revived afterwards as two magic to one tech seems slightly unfair.

If there has been no faction changes, especially as far as models, music and the larger files go, surely it should be possible to make an update package, rather than a full download, for people who have a previous version installed. Saves massive downloads when the only changes have been to the source code (and maybe some xml tweaking to balance factions, add new abilities etc.)

[modman]

I don't want to stray too off topic here, so I will start a new topic.

I would just like to mention, kazakore, that if you think that two magic and one tech faction is unfair, we can add Dwarves as well.